Martin Parr recently spoke to art critic Alastair Sooke about a number of personal accords he shares with his work and his photographic philosophy. Martin "shows things as he finds them", a true documentary approach that is overarching Parr's retrospective work.
Martin Parr, New Brighton from The Last Resort, c. 1983-85. CREDIT: MARTIN PARR/MAGNUM PHOTOS
"As well as running the Martin Parr Foundation, which advances education in the art of photography, he is curating Strange and Familiar: Britain as Revealed by International Photographers, an exhibition that will open at the Barbican in March. By now, I suggest, he must have finessed the formula for taking a quintessential “Parr” photograph. “You are after iconic moments,” he concedes, “but they are very difficult to produce. Most of the pictures I take are not very good. For the rhubarb commission, I took three or four thousand – and ended up with 40. If I knew how to take a great photo, I would stop.
'My job is to record things with integrity, and I can always do that,' he says. 'Whether I take a 'great’ photo is down to luck.'" -Alastair Sooke
Martin Parr, St Moritz polo world cup on snow from Luxury, 2011. CREDIT: MARTIN PARR
Read the entire article on The Telegraph.
